Archive for the ‘Tom Thompson’ tag

Our magazines have voracious appetites for material – they consume it heartily as we fill issues with features, draining our file cabinets as we scramble to maintain the lifeblood of our publications. Fortunately, the old car hobby is comprised of a mass of networks, so finding one car often leads to others.

In this case, our connection on one car generated leads to a pair of very rare factory drag racers, but it got even better when the trail also included links to the men who originally piloted these cars down the quarter mile.

Gary Barnes is a Maryland collector who was featured in our August 2012 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines (HMM #107) with his 1967 Shelby G.T. 500, a car he’d known since it was brand new when he was just 12 years old. Barnes bought the Shelby several years later when he was 18 and restored it, and had recently completed a new stem-to-stern restoration, after which we connected to do the photo shoot on the car. That’s when we spotted the Thunderbolt in his garage.

The car was lettered in period livery, with “King Ford Sales” emblazoned on the doors; under the window was simply “Bud.” According to Gary, that Bud was Bud Shellenberger, the King Ford service manager who also drove the car in competition for the dealership – and he was a friend who still lived locally. It got even better when Gary mentioned that he was also friends with Tom Thompson, who still owned the 1965 Mercury Comet B/FX racer he’d driven when it was new; it was one of just 15 built by Bill Stroppe for Mercury, and it was in excellent unrestored condition.

Naturally, we had to get the cars and their original drivers together, and so we did for the January issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines. The story outlines how Gary Barnes found and restored the Thunderbolt, and details some of Bud’s experiences with it back in the day; Tom Thompson also has stories to tell about his time on the track with his Comet.

The story is part of our “Factory Fast” theme for January, which also includes a Restoration Profile on one of the original 1968 Cobra Jet Mustang factory drag cars, a 1962 Chevy 409/409 Impala with the lightweight package and a 1967 Plymouth WO23 Hemi Belvedere II Super Stocker. Watch for it to appear on newsstands or in your mailbox very soon.